Overseas Travel Insurance

What is Travel Insurance?

How often do you travel? Do you travel across the globe? Are you a globetrotter? Do you keep one bag eternally packed with your basic necessities because you might have to travel at any time? Your business trips only come at the last minute without much warning?

Well, in this case have you ever had a problem like:

• Your baggage was misplaced?
• Your passport was stolen?
• You missed your connecting flight because the previous one was delayed?
• You had to be admitted into a hospital while holidaying in Dubai?
• Someone from your office met with a fatal accident during your business trip to London?
• Your trip had to be cancelled due to bad weather and you suffered a loss at the flight and hotel reservation?

Travel Insurance has the solution to the all above problems. And that’s exactly what Travel Insurance means! Travel Insurance means insuring the risks of having a financial loss or a medical emergency while travelling. Travel Insurance can be temporarily purchased for a single trip. However for frequent fliers, Travel Insurance can be taken for a whole year and it suffices for ‘n’ number of trips throughout the year. Overseas student travel, business travel, leisure travel, adventure travel, cruise travel, and international travel are all various options that can be insured. The most common risks that are covered by overseas travel insurance are:

• Overseas Medical expenses
• Accidental death or injury
• Overseas funeral expenses
• Loss, theft or damage to personal possessions and money (including travel documents)
• Delayed baggage (and emergency replacement of essential items) or Loss of baggage
• Loss of passport
• Missed connecting flight due to delay
• Trip Cancellation expenses due to unforeseen weather conditions, etc.
• Overseas Dental Treatment

Some overseas travel policies will also provide cover for additional costs, although these vary widely between providers. The additional features provided by them are:

• Pre-existing medical conditions
• Travel to high-risk countries, in event of war or terrorism
• Death or accident due to overdose of drugs or alcohol
• Mental disorder, anxiety

If the above conditions are not specifically mentioned, they are usually a part of Exclusions. Insurance companies usually cover pregnancy related expenses within the first trimester; post which it varies from company to company. Overseas travel insurance can also provide helpful services, often 24 hours a day, 7 days a week that can include emergency travel assistance, booking of tickets, hotel assistance, etc. It is like a traveler’s friend in case of any unforeseen happening on the trip!

Single Trip: This type of policy is like a single-entry visa which entitles the passenger to benefit only for a single trip. It expires as soon as the single trip is over. In fact, the premium also depends on where you are travelling and for how many days! Traveling destination is important as some places and countries are higher in risk than others. Also, higher the tenure of the trip, higher would be the risk of meeting with medical or financial emergencies. Thus the premium depends on these 2 factors along with the person’s age, health conditions, etc. Overseas travel insurance is a combination of general insurance, life insurance and health insurance.

Multi Trip This type of plan is usually for 1 year for any number of places within the specified time limit. This is like a multiple-entry visa where you can travel to many places within the same year and be covered for al the trips on the single policy. The premium depends on the countries of visit and tenure of each visit along with the age and health of the individual traveling. As medical emergencies are covered, thus health check of the individual becomes of prime importance.

Student policy This type of plans are usually for students who go to study abroad. In case they suffer financial and medical emergencies, the same would be covered under this particular policy. The plan usually covers the student for the entire tenure of the education.

Domestic Travel This is usually taken for travel within India. It covers for the financial loss, baggage delay & loss and medical emergencies for travel within India.

Senior Citizen Travel This type of plan are especially designed for senior citizens. Medical and non-medical expenses of senior citizens when traveling abroad including hijack distress allowance. Senior citizen plan is the most preferred among other travel insurers because pre-existing diseases in life-threatening emergency situations are also covered. Benefits like checked-in baggage loss/ delay and cashless hospitalisation worldwide are also usually provided.